Mr. Cuomo, in his first international trip as governor, was scheduled to travel immediately from Ben-Gurion Airport to the residence of Israel President Reuven Rivlin, in Jerusalem.

From there, the governor, along with state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Coalition Co-leaders Dean Skelos and Jeffrey D. Klein, is slated to travel to downtown Jerusalem to visit with students from New York at a pizzeria, Big Apple Pizza.

Later Wednesday, the officials are scheduled to meet with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, followed by a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and finally a trip to the Western Wall.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, appeared to feel the political payoff of the trip before his plane had even left American airspace.

About two hours into the commercial flight from John F. Kennedy International airport, Mr. Cuomo emerged from the business-class section of the plane to take a lap around coach, where he was greeted with shrieks and a barrage of selfies.

While passengers had heard an announcement from the crew welcoming the governor to the plane shortly after take-off, most didn’t know in advance that he would be on the flight, nor did his appearance in the coach cabin come with any advance notice.

In khakis and a blue-striped oxford shirt, with several buttons undone, Mr. Cuomo glad-handed his way down one aisle, then up the other, pausing at nearly every row to pose for photos or play with a teething toddler or two.

The governor, who snaked through the aisles unaccompanied by security detail, doesn’t always appear to be the most comfortable retail politician, but the captive audience of the El Al flight proved a highly receptive one.

Stopping to greet a pair of young Orthodox boys, their peyot–or sidelocks– barely visible, Mr. Cuomo cupped the chin of the smaller one.

“How handsome are you?” the governor cooed.

A middle-aged woman in a pink blouse wondered aloud if Mr. Cuomo could be part of her minyan, or prayer congregation.

“How’s your dad?” one passenger shouted to Mr. Cuomo from a middle seat.

“I talked to him on the way here,” the governor responded, sounding genuinely touched. “Thank you for asking about him.”

Perhaps the most enthusiastic traveler was Adela Sasson, from East Brunswick, N.J.

“I swear I wanted to go hug him and kiss him,” she said.

“I didn’t know what to do. It was beyond the call of duty,” Ms. Sasson, 73 years old, who was traveling to Israel for her grandson’s Bar Mitzvah, said of Mr. Cuomo’s excursion to the back of the plane.

“We need so much the support of everybody,” she said of Israel, “and for someone like him to do it, that’s just great.”

Mr. Cuomo also proved a popular selfie participant, so much so that he at one point declared a “selfie rage” aboard the aircraft.

Some passengers, however, harbored suspicions about the governor’s intentions concerning the “solidarity” trip, as he has billed it.

Ran Veichman, who was traveling back to his home in Tel Aviv, said he questioned the timing of Mr. Cuomo’s trip.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg “came when the airlines were saying don’t fly,” Mr. Veichman, 32, pointed out. “I heard he’s running for a second term,” he said of the governor, “so I was just wondering, why now?”

After about 30 minutes of providing in-flight entertainment, the governor seemed as though he had had enough, and the gubernatorial cabin stroll came to its conclusion.

“Alright guys, going to sleep,” he mentioned several times to the crowd while also quietly indicating to a crew member his preference for the fish option for dinner.

Before he could duck back behind the business-class curtain, however, a reporter asked Mr. Cuomo: “Did you find some voters here?”